When knitting or crocheting, the yarn is typically drawn from a ball or skein placed on the floor. Significant drawbacks are inherent in this situation. The ball or skein is largely uncontrolled allowing them to roll or move around thus requiring the knitter to periodically stop and retrieve them. In addition, certain pets, particularly of the feline persuasion, are known to consider such things as a ball of yarn as playthings and will engage the artisan in games of fetch or keep-away requiring the knitter or crocheter to stop their craft-work and vie for control of the yarn. With the uncontrolled unraveling of the yarn, from whatever cause, tangling invariably occurs causing further disruption to the process.
It is recognized by knitters and crocheters that yarn is more likely to tangle if used from the skein as purchased than if it is unwound from its original skein and rewound on a spool of some sort For some knitters and crocheters, it is preferable to rewind the yarn even though this introduces an extra step in the knitting or crocheting process. There is therefore an opportunity for significant time savings if yarn can be used directly in skein form. For this reason, most of the inventions developed to solve these problems are intended to work with yarns in skein form.
The inventions that have been made to address these primary problems typically involve the insertion of a rod through the skein with the rod being either horizontally or vertically mounted so as to allow rotation of the skein. The goal with these devices is basically to control the movement of the skein to prevent or at least minimize tangling of the yarn and to control the rate of delivery of the yarn.
The simplest of these devices is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,059,243 to Hartley which discloses a base member with hinged and foldable end members with a horizontal rod positioned between the end members. The rod is inserted through the skein and the yarn simply pulled off as needed.
A step-up is the device depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,909,457 to Johnson which encloses the skein-carrying rod or spindle inside top and bottom semi-cylindrical shells. The bottom portion acts as a base holding the spindle and skein. The top portion, which includes a carry handle, closes over the bottom portion.
The device of U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,655 to McCarthy, supports the skein vertically and is intended to provide a device which can be used with any size or skein configuration and includes a guide mechanism to route yarn to the user.
All of these devices achieve some measure of success; however, there is still a need for a device that is easy and convenient to use while holding and controlling the yarn during the dispensing operation.